1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to banking operations, and more particularly, to payment of invoices using a mobile device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, there are a number of conventional methods for paying seller's invoices by the buyers. One conventional payment method uses bank debit or credit cards. The main shortcoming of this method is a low security. A client has to send a secret card data to the seller, who uses this data for taking the money from the client's bank account. The client's secret data goes through a long chain of intermediaries, such as: a POS terminal, a network, a service provider, an acquirer, a payment system and an issuer, etc.
Another shortcoming of the conventional payment method using bank debit cards is high transaction commissions (caused by a long chain of the above-mentioned intermediaries) and the risk reduction costs.
Another conventional payment method is Online Banking ePayments (OBeP) schema. These payment services have already taken a large share of Internet commerce. For example, in Germany, Giropay, http:**en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giropay is widely used.
An iDEAL, http:**en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL payment system is used in Netherlands. In the United States http://www.securevaultpayments.org/ is used. The OBeP buying scenario is implemented as follows. A buyer of the Internet store is offered the OBeP as one of the payment methods. A brand name is used instead of the OBeP. The buyer selects a bank where he has an account. The buyer is referred to a bank authentication page. The authentication is performed using conventional means, such as a password, SMS, CAP, etc. The buyer confirms the payment. The payment amount is transferred to the seller's account. The seller receives a payment confirmation and ships the item(s) to the buyer.
The main problem with the OBeP is a difficulty of launching the service. Each bank, which wants to participate in the service, has to develop its own interface between the Internet bank system and the payment service. The interface is unique for each bank, and no general interface solution exists. This makes launching of the common payment service system expensive and creates delays, especially in case of a large number of the participants.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an effective and efficient method for payment for goods and services, which does not require significant modifications of the existing bank systems.